


blank verse

by katraa



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Flirting, Jazz Club, M/M, Poetry, Snark, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25537852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katraa/pseuds/katraa
Summary: Akechi chuckles.  “Oh, definitely not an original.  Not yet, at least.  I wouldn’t want to harm the ears of the patrons of this fine place.”“I think it’d be fine, but okay.”  Akira looks between the brunette and the stage.  “Anything I know?”“That depends.  How uncultured are you?”akira and akechi spend a few evenings at the jazz club.  akechi does a poetry reading, akira may or may not be supportive of it, and akechi isn't the only one who knows how to hide behind a metaphor.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 98





	blank verse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmicshoujo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicshoujo/gifts).



> so i've only seen videos of royal but here i am.  
> no real spoilers for the new content other than the jazz club.  
> so there's that!!
> 
> i really wanted to get back into shuake so consider this me stretching my proverbial limbs.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Goro Akechi takes his drinks with exactly five ice cubes. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he prefers them shaken, not stirred, and exactly the correct shade of indigo. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, while this place is fairly known in certain circuits, the fact that the second prince detective spends his free time unwinding here is a well kept secret by the staff and performers. 

That is, until Akira Kurusu became a frequent flyer of the club.

* * * * * 

“You don’t carry a fake identification card with you, do you, Kurusu?”

Akira isn’t looking at him. Well, it’s hard to discern where exactly the wrangler of the Phantom Thieves is looking given the unlucky combination of messy hair and glasses that keep reflecting the dim lights of the jazz club just right. To say it would be on purpose wouldn’t entirely be a stretch – a happy fiction rooted in reality.

“Do I what?” repeats the thief as he spins the festive straw around in his beverage. 

“You heard me.” Akechi’s smile is still there, thin but present, his elbow up on the little antique table as he rests his chin down into his upturned palm. “Many teenagers in your school have had them confiscated from their persons. As someone who has been witness to that, the fine isn’t exactly pretty.”

Akira snorts, whether he means to or not. He takes a long, poignant sip of his beverage and then leans back in his chair. “Dunno, detective. Do you think I have one?”

“Hah!” Akechi’s smile reaches his eyes, just this once, and he immediately shuts them. “You’re always one for the banter, aren’t you? I enjoy that about you.”

“Compliments aplenty,” remarks Akira as he takes a shorter sip of his drink this time. “I don’t have one, though. You’re welcome to check me, but getting one seemed like a bad idea when I’m on probation.”

“So to speak,” Akechi corrects and then spares a glance to the guitarist setting up on the stage not too far from their cozy table. “And how have you been finding that?”

“House arrest?” wonders Akira, lips curling up into an amused grin. “Oh, you know. Attics are my true calling…” He trails off and adjusts his glasses before perhaps eccentrically adding, “I think I’m going to go into a career remodeling them. Boss watches a show sometimes called House Flippers. Maybe I’ll do that.”

Akechi’s eyes gravitate back towards Akira. It’s a long moment before he speaks, but when he does, the airy little puff of a laugh doesn’t sound coerced. Nor does it sound faked, “A model citizen, learning from your past mistakes. I applaud you.”

“Again with the pleasantries,” says Akira with a good natured roll of his neck. “If I didn’t know any better, you taking me here and constantly praising me… I’d think either you were keeping tabs on me, or you liked me.”

Akechi doesn’t answer. Akira doesn’t except him to.

The performer that takes the stage is a teenage girl with long brown hair, curls that compliment her facial structure, and hands that have bruises and cuts. She plays acoustic and she sings sweetly, a nice little medley that’s perfect for a place like this where the lights are turned down low and people catch up with old friends over the poison of their choice.

Akira supposes that Akechi is his preferred venom this evening.

“Have you ever performed?” asks Akira, just above a whisper so as not to disrupt the guests sitting nearby.

“Performed.” Akechi repeats it and glances over. The man’s hand fiddles with the knot of his tie, as if he needs room to breathe before daring to answer such a wild question. “I don’t think this place would take kindly to a special episode of my summarized cases.” The smile is plastic.

“You must have other hobbies,” Akira presses and he ignores that maybe that was a little harsh, since killing people seemed to be high on his list, right up there with trying to pull the wool over the Phantom Thieves, getting closer and closer each day to the truth. “Guitar? Flute?”

“Flute,” Akechi laughs and he shakes his head, his too-soft hair falling in his face, obscuring his expression. “That requires a level of patience I’m afraid I just don’t have. For wood-winds.”

“Heh.” Akira adjusts his glasses again and reaches out to flick the straw in Akechi’s drink. “Ok, so nothing else?”

Akechi hesitates, and when he speaks, it sounds an awful like the truth, “… I do poetry, sometimes. When I was still in the system, they taught it to the children as a coping mechanism so they could begin to process their feelings and thoughts on certain topics.”

Akira’s expression says it all. A blink or two later and he’s retracting his hand, sitting upright in his chair, face all sorts of messy expressions. “You write anything good?”

“That’s in the eye of the beholder,” remarks the detective with another shake of his head. “It’s been quite awhile since I last picked up a pen for something that wasn’t busy work.”

“Y’know, if you ever wanted to try again,” begins Akira and he cants his head to the side, to the stage, “I think you have a captive and willing audience right here.”

Akechi pretends to ignore him, as if he hadn’t heard.

* * * * * * 

The problem is, actually, that Akechi _did_ hear.

The next time the two of them hang out, Akechi creeping closer and closer to exposing the thieves for who they are, Akechi looks strangely uptight. Akira thinks it must be the pressure of the case, of his fans who are giving him backlash for dragging the thieves through the mud, but he can’t be certain. Maybe Akechi is just doing terrible, terrible things in the dark that Akira wouldn’t like to dwell on. It’s one thing to know someone is flawed, toxic, but an entirely different issue to keep reminding yourself of it. People can change, but how far can that really get you?

“Akechi,” begins Akira as the waitress taps her foot, waiting for an answer, “Did you want another?”

Another fun festive drink for another lackluster night, but hey, who’s keeping track? 

Akechi simply nods his agreement to the proposal and goes back to eying the stage as if it’s on fire. Akira follows that gaze, stares at the splintering wood, and then looks back. What an enigma this guy really is. By now, Akira would have thought he had figured him out, but the layers to him just keep contradicting everything else he knows. The truth and the lies and the modicums of reality. 

“I’m performing tonight,” is what Akechi finally says, fiddling with his messenger bag and taking out a little green book. Akira is almost disappointed it isn’t black. “A poem. I’m up in a few moments,” he adds for the sake of hearing his own voice, maybe. It shakes.

“No shit,” says Akira, surprise staining his voice as he restlessly twirls his bangs. “You pick it up again?”

“Recently,” agrees the detective, “After our little conversation – ah, consider it intrigue. It felt very much like riding a bicycle. While I was quite rusty at first, I do believe that I got the hang of it again.”

“Something you write, or are you reading something else?” wonders Akira.

Akechi chuckles. “Oh, definitely not an original. Not yet, at least. I wouldn’t want to harm the ears of the patrons of this fine place.”

“I think it’d be fine, but okay.” Akira looks between the brunette and the stage. “Anything I know?”

“That depends. How uncultured are you?”

There’s something real, something playfully sharp and dangerous both in Akechi’s tone and his gaze. Much like the loneliness that sometimes comes through his words, Akira knows this is a facet of the real Goro Akechi. Whether or not that’s a good thing, Akira feels no need to decide right now. All he does know is that the teenager sitting across from him isn’t all good, nor is he pure evil; a mismatch of morality.

“Well, I’m up,” says Akechi as the owner of the club adjusts the microphone on the stage and says his name with a bright smile.

Akira can hardly wait.

* * * * * * 

“Did you know it?” asks Akechi as the club is emptying and the lights are down low. It’s nearly that time of the night, closing time, and Akira doesn’t feel any closer to the truth than he did earlier that night. Akechi looks a lot calmer, a lot brighter, more whoever he is at his core than the detective he parades around pretending to be. Akira considers himself moderately lucky for that.

“Ozymandias,” Akira agrees with a lop-sided grin. “The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,” he repeats, recites, and matches Akechi’s gaze without hesitation. “Kinda fitting, you know?”

“What exactly do you mean?”

“Who knows,” says Akira as he grabs for his jacket and tugs it on. 

So they go into the night, two strays cast back into the cold world.

* * * * * * 

Akechi walks him home. Or maybe, he tails him home because he’s keeping tabs on him and needs it for his report. Whatever the reason, Akechi is eerily quiet this walk back and has been since Akira recited that particular line from the poem. When they reach the familiar storefront of Leblanc, Akira glances over at him, watching Akechi fix up a button or two that have come loose on his jacket.

“So, that was fun,” says Akira for the sake of formality, hands in his pockets and mind reeling with this newly obtained information he just isn’t sure quite what to do with. “Feels like we’re real chums, now.”

“Chums,” echoes Akechi with a laugh that’s hardly there. “Such a peculiar way with talking. That must be the country boy in you.”

“Must be,” agrees Akira and he cants his head to the side, watching the way the dim, artificial lighting of Leblanc casts beautiful shadows on the otherwise pale skin of Akechi. It’s a master piece, Akira thinks, and wonders if Yusuke would agree, “Text me when you want to hang out again. It was fun.”

“So you said,” says Akechi as he adjusts his scarf and then glances off to the side. “I’ve been… quite busy lately, so I can’t promise I’ll have much time for such distractions in the near future.”

“Oh, yeah. Chasing those thieves. Must be keeping you up at night,” grouses Akira, mocking, before he smiles a bit softer, a bit more real. “I mean it. Whenever. I’m around.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Akechi says and then looks away, about ready to say something he always does when he ends the night. 

Before he can cut him to the chase, Akira speaks again. This time, he sounds like he’s reciting something, “'I wander thro’ each charter’d street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.'”

Akechi’s gaze is on the cement. When it rises, there’s delightful twinkling in those mischievously mysterious eyes. “You said it incorrectly. It’s pronounced Thames,” he mindlessly corrects and then leans in closer to chuckle, “I had no idea you were a fan of Blake. Such interesting things I keep learning about you. I wonder when the mystery will wear off?”

“Wear off? Probably never,” Akira answers, proudly and firmly, catching the way the light reflects in his eyes. “Here’s another one for you. ‘I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.” And Akira’s eyes never leave Akechi’s lips.

They both fall silent, a sort of dangerous flicker in Akechi’s eyes. The man doesn’t fall victim to it, but instead leans forward and whispers, a scant centimeter from Akira’s warm but chapped lips, “Another Blake. I thought you were going to keep me guessing?”

Akira breathes in, once, twice, and almost closes that gap, almost ends the night with the sort of finale that it’s been building up to for hours, days, weeks.

But he doesn’t, and instead reaches out to brush an errant lock of brown out of Akechi’s face, hand lingering on the cold skin there, watching as Akechi’s pupils dilate, widen, his breath catching, as Akira says, “Ozymandias is overrated. Mask of anarchy would have been a better pick. 

Goodnight, Akechi.”

He had been lying. To the Moon was his favorite.

_Art thou pale for weariness  
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,  
Wandering companionless  
Among the stars that have a different birth,  
And ever changing, like a joyless eye  
That finds no object worth its constancy?  
_

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @katvefe !!!


End file.
